Toes to the Edge

Tom Kotula and Jon Hauserman, two local rowers from the Cleveland State University Viking crew, were videoed and interviewed on the CBS evening news. They are rowing from Cleveland, Ohio to Key West to raise awareness for Habit for Humanity. They also made the local evening news.

Oh to be young again and have the time for adventures like this!

A local news channel featured a short segment on a local, fairly new, rowing club. We’ve pretty much given up trying to get our local newspaper to recognize the local high-school rowing teams (the paper is becoming less and less relevant anyway), so it is always good to see rowing in the popular media.

I hadn’t realized the Portage Lakes Rowing association had grown. It’s very good to hear!

I had a search registered for this book on tape.
It is a fictional account of his experience as a rowing coach. Copies are rare and I already have mine, so I’m passing this along to the group in case anyone is interested.

Wanted: Rowing Coach by Brad Alan Lewis
Audio Cassette. Books on Tape, Inc. (1996)
9780736634342.
Good. $4.80
Buy now at: http://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invid=9701681989

It’s not quite ‘The Shell Game’ but still a very worthwhile listen.

I’ve uploaded a new video showing a 350 meter row with ErgMate to: http://powertwenty.com/ergmate/videos/350MeterRow/350MeterRow.html

There is also a new release that fixes a minor bug when editing the percent heart-rate clip.

An update to ErgMate is available at: http://powertwenty.com/ergmate/update.html.

This fixes problems found with communication to the erg and calling power 10’s and 20’s.

There is no need to download the full version if you’ve installed it once already, the update is much smaller as it does not include the computer voice.

Do download the full version if it is your first time as it contains a high-quality voice.

I am pleased to say that ErgMate 1.0 was released today.

ErgMate is a program used while rowing on the Concept II Indoor Rowing Machine.

It helps you meet your goals by calling out information about the row – such as distance remaining or time to go, just like a real coxswain. It can sequence music for you throughout the piece – start out with a list of songs that are steady and driving, then switch over to something fast for the final 250 meter sprint as your ErgMate calls a final power 20.

Have a look and download a free trial at http://powertwenty.com/ergmate/index.html.

Hope you enjoy it!

This Year’s Hammer Ergatta information was just announced:

It will be at the John Carroll University Recplex on Sunday, February 22.

This indoor regatta benefits a local collegiate rowing club, so if you are in the Cleveland area, come on out, have a little fun, and help out a rowing club.

Contact Chris Maeder for more information.

I found the old Erg-Piece Calculator I wrote back when I maintained the WRRA website. Since it’s been lost on that site, I thought it would be nice post it here.

Just fill in two of the three fields and hit tab or enter. The calculator will fill in the third field, then it’s up to you.

Just a quick update. The first release is feature-complete. At this point I am just waiting on the voice vendor to complete an evaluation of the demonstration/trail mode. ErgMate will ship with a high quality voice that is a marked improvement over MS-Mary, Mike, or Sam.

While I’ve not posted any updates in some time (that’s what having a baby will do to you), I have been busy incorporating feedback from the early beta testing. The biggest new feature is a wizard that allows one to create new sequences by simply answering a few questions. You also can now row to music from your iTunes collection in addition to files on disk.